Rihanna puts 777 tour woes behind her to take London by storm

A revitalised
Rihanna put the recent rumours about her chaotic 777 tour behind her on Monday night as she earned rave reviews for her performance at London’s Kentish Town Forum.

Rihanna performed at the Kentish Town Forum (Picture: Getty)

The gig coincided with the release of her seventh studio album Unapologetic, and by the time she took to the stage it was already No.1 in the iTunes Chart in the UK, despite only being released hours previously.

The 24-year-old’s enthusiastic hour-long set in London will have eased some of the negative publicity surrounding the promotional tour, which has seen a group of fans and journalists travel with Rihanna on a Boeing 777 to six different countries in as many days, with a trip to New York still to come.

In Berlin on Sunday she was booed by the crowd when she finally made it onto the stage at 11:30pm and, according to Rolling Stone’s Jeff Rosenthal, promptly forgot the lyrics to the first verse of Don’t Stop the Music.

Rihanna performed in front of a star-studded crowd (Picture: Reuters)

There were no such issues for London’s leg of the whirlwind tour, but it was still gone 10pm when Rihanna took to the stage, three hours after some fans had incorrectly been told she would be performing.

Delivering a short, sharp burst of her hits, with a couple of tunes from the new album thrown in for good measure, the Barbadian ensured the party was finished long before the last Tube departed, keeping the youthful crowd’s mind constantly at ease.

Showing no signs of the exhaustion reported by the vast majority of the press travelling with her, Rihanna delighted the crowd with a hugely flirtatious and energetic show, belting out hits from 2007’s Umbrella to the latest single Diamonds, ending in euphoric fashion with the Calvin Harris-penned We Found Love.

Rihanna delivered an energetic set (Picture: Reuters)

Only once did the strain of putting on such a chaotic tour become apparent, when Rihanna stopped singing mid-way through Talk That Talk’s Where Have You Been to chastise her sound engineers for the quality of the backing track. She quickly rediscovered her stride though, dismissing the incident as the ‘b******* of a rock ‘n’ roll tour’.

Afterwards celebrities and fans alike took to Twitter to praise the 24-year-old’s performance, with Radio 1’s Scott Mills posting: ‘Went to see @rihanna tonight. Actually amazing. Confirmed best pop star in the world. Can’t describe how good.’

He later added: ‘Beyonce is also mind blowing amazing. But rihanna tonight was at her best. Incredible.’

Rihanna played London as part of her 777 tour (Picture: Reuters)

Actress Chloë Moretz wrote simply: ‘Brilliant night. #RudeGal @rihanna You KILLED it!!!’ and uploaded a picture of her view of the gig.

Some fans though were less impressed when Rihanna asked the crowd to chant the names of her sponsors while she handed out a free smartphone.

Earlier, the singer turned on the Christmas lights at the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford in front of thousands of fans, an act that reportedly earned her a cool £500,000.